If you had Tina Turner, Shania Twain, Grammy Award winners Carlos Santana and Cher jammin’ at a concert broadcast at your IR web site, you’d draw mucho traffic. If Santana’s efforts or Cher’s single Believe are too flamboyant, premier violinist Itzhak Perlman and operatic singer Andrea Bocelli would be more low-key.
Want something more point-&-click? A host of choices await you in cyberspace. They could help keep you from becoming a ‘prisoner of your own device,’ as the The Eagles once intoned.
How you attract traffic says a lot about your web PR savvy, observes Jeffrey Geibel from PR firm Geibel Public Relations in Belmont, Massachusetts. He believes the internet can be very powerful in generating interest among investors, but ‘a lot depends on how effectively you use it.’ He categorizes the press rooms of many corporate IR sites:
– Stealth: Can’t find it unless you type in the exact URL. ‘If you can’t find a site with a metasearch engine (say, www.google.com) you better call out the navy’s search and rescue ship Grappler.’
– Egyptian: ‘Denial isn’t a river in Egypt. Egyptian web sites are run by companies that want to deny the obvious, usually bad news.’
– Smithsonian: Because it’s at least six months out of date. ‘Either update your site at least once a month or don’t have one.’
– Release-of-the-week club: With a ‘whole slew of releases, all of which say nothing, or could have said it in a single sentence.’
– Professional: ‘Very rare but it has it all on one page. Tabs or links take you to a backgrounder, executive bios, financials, and so on. There are the top three or four customer profiles. This company knows how to reach visitors with well-organized, quality web PR. Nirvana!’
If your site hasn’t achieved nirvana, you may need help in attracting visitors. Grafik Marketing Communications (www.grafik.com) in Alexandria, Virginia ‘attempts to drive traffic by establishing links to portal sites, strategic partners, information services, and resource providers,’ says chief creative officer Judy Kirpich. ‘We recognize a client’s target market doesn’t live on the internet, so we ensure the message is carried throughout all media.’ Besides, she remarks, ‘If web PR is so effective by itself, why did Amazon.com and others flock to TV and radio over the holidays?’
That underscores Kirpich’s overall feeling about IR web sites: ‘With all due respect to actors James Earl Jones and Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, If you build it, they will come is a fallacy.’
Traffic expert
Drawing and retaining IR traffic may be easy for a McDonald’s, but the approach of a lesser-known corporate leader such as Jacksonville, Florida-based transport giant CSX Corp is also illustrative. CSX’s IR site (www.csx.com) offers quarterly earnings releases and news flashes, says spokesperson Elisabeth Gabrynowicz. ‘For each quarterly earnings announcement,’ she adds, ‘the slides used by executives at the analyst meeting in New York are posted on the web for those who can’t make the meeting. They can pull up the slides to follow the presentation along with the audio.’
CSX delivers current and archived releases. The annual report is posted, as are individual unit descriptions and background information. The URL is included on faxes and e-mails sent to analysts as a reminder of the availability of information. And, adds Gabrynowicz, ‘Our site address is included on press releases, annual reports, and other printed materials.’
Gabrynowicz says CSX is ‘currently working with both our own internal portal and other organizations on portal-type interaction. They can be very effective if coordinated correctly, taking into account security and network structure, and can offer the company a competitive advantage if done properly.’ As for search engines, CSX employs ‘an individual who utilizes search engine software and performs monthly research to do the necessary registrations and web interaction.’
Josh Sinel, CEO of New York-based Blue Barn Interactive (www.bluebarn.com), believes that for shareholders, ‘Perhaps the most enticing part of such a site would be real expert information given in live forums and Q&A events. People tend to trust experts, especially with name recognition. A shareholder who feels serviced objectively will affiliate more strongly with the investments they have made.’
Controlling access
Also pivotal is providing some level of ‘controlled access to primary players within the companies in which they’ve invested. That builds trust. Also key is broadcasting shareholder meetings to a wider audience to get investors more involved across a wider geographic area, either through live chat transcription or streaming media,’ Sinel adds.
Mark Mathias, president and CEO of Burbank, California-based EurekaDigital.com, advises providing something that shareholders can receive only at the site. As for cost, he figures, ‘Creativity counts for a lot, especially in providing something unique. Sometimes, too much money leads designers to provide sites that deter people from using them regularly, especially high-bandwidth items or special plug-ins.’
He suggests making sure your corporation’s web site is registered with the major search engines, including ‘search engines of search engines,’ by putting someone in charge of registration. ‘Subscribe to a service such as Search Engine Watch (www.searchenginewatch.com), and monitor performance. Fine-tune the site and resubmit to the search engines as necessary to ensure results are what the company seeks.’
Taking that a step further, Kent Lewis, VP of internet strategies at Wave Rock Communications in Portland, Oregon (www.waverock.com), suggests that besides SEC filings and charts, a company should send shareholders e-mail updates that include embedded graphics and links back to the IR web site. Another effort might be ‘promotion in financial and investor news groups, which are highly-targeted communities where people contribute comments, questions and information on a variety of topics. Participation in news groups can be cost-effective, though it requires adherence to news group rules, which include refraining from spamming or blatantly selling to newsgroup members.’
Beyond search engines
Lewis notes that since most major search engines are run by computers and not humans, content must be targeted to the potential visitor. ‘If not, a site may be given a low ranking,’ he warns. ‘Sites must be submitted on an ongoing basis. Beyond search engines, Lewis says many visitors use alternative online resources for locating sites. These include popular directories as well as specific industry and portal sites. ‘Since humans typically control directory and resource site content, ongoing interaction requires human interaction and care.’
To help provide such financial data, New York-based eFit Corp. (www.eFit.com) has created a ‘personalized content profiling management and distribution system’. Charles Platkin, eFit’s president and CEO, contends the system profiles and targets information for each user and ‘tracks finite details of a user’s activity while managing profiles. All content is tagged based on the relevance to a particular topic in accordance with a profile rating system.’
As the user navigates, each content element is delivered based on previous viewing history and subsequent relevance in the tagged rating, Platkin adds. ‘The process incorporates all data from the site, including text articles, streaming audio or video, event listings based on locator function, products, commerce, chat and BBS entries, sponsorship promotions and ad banners.’
Still, Matt Westfield, director of development for portal site developer Kostech Corp (www.kostech.com) in Reno, Nevada, maintains that ‘merely having an IR site isn’t like renting retail space in a mall. The ultimate challenge is how do we get people to see the story and maximize traffic and keep them there? It doesn’t matter how good, pretty or informative your site is. It does matter if no one sees it.’
Getting the word out
While the investor relations department makes the site compliant and informative, one of the most crucial requirements is that the word be made to reach existing and potential shareholders. ‘Potential investors are the enormous challenge, especially since there are more investors managing their own portfolios than at any other time in history,’ notes Westfield. His advice? ‘You either propagate banner ads throughout the internet – which has been shown to be ineffective – or align with a financial portal, a site which attracts viewers to return. The portal site must have easy navigation and obvious links. If the desired information is deeper than two or three links, chances are the viewer will lose interest.’
Kostech endeavors to ‘channel potential long-term investors to company IR sites’ through its E-Relations and Informed Investor portal sites. ‘We use many ways to feature a story,’ says Westfield .
In February, Santa Monica, California-based Goinvest.com launched a service that gives web sites a supply of financial information. Jeff Fenley, president and CEO, says, ‘Online brokers and financial institutions can provide clients customized, private-labeled content. Our turnkey software and content solutions help brokers, institutions and portals retain customers longer.’ He believes Goinvest’s ‘software applications and content save money and speed the development cycle.’
Getting good web PR is much more important than what Jennifer Lopez isn’t wearing or identifying the father of Madonna’s second child. Gary Fishman, managing director of New York-based Hudson Stone Group, works with corporations to develop, implement, and manage IR programs and build a following. He argues, ‘The benefits typically include increased liquidity and shareholder value. This can be used to fuel growth, reduce debt, and create powerful management and employee incentives via stock option and 401K plans. An effective program can lead to enhanced visibility, reputation, and credibility among current and prospective customers.’
That’s all well and good, but to ensure web PR doesn’t turn into a Black Magic Woman, Blue Barn’s Sinel adds, ‘Don’t recycle information readily available on any site such as Yahoo. Avoid a voice which speaks to only the most sophisticated investor. Avoid speaking down; however intelligent you assume your audience to be, chances are it’s more intelligent than that. Also, an audience will explore if it’s enticed and comes to some pay-off. The deeper they move within your site, the more likely they are to remain and to return.’
Sinel believes attracting and retaining an audience to an investor relations site and keeping it there results from ‘knowing the audience and the business goals of the site. Every audience is looking for an experience which speaks to its members and their reasons for being on your site.’
